


The Importance of Light Perception

by Calamity_Lena



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Bad Flashbacks, Blindness, Brotherly Affection, Drama, Gen, Memories, Mild Language, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calamity_Lena/pseuds/Calamity_Lena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Spine always appears so cool and in control, but there is something about blindness that takes the ever understanding automaton over the edge of panic. When he needs to have his photoreceptors upgraded and cleaned, his brothers must do everything they can to help him through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Importance of Light Perception

**Author's Note:**

> A/N
> 
> Trigger!Warnings: Mild Swearing, Bad Flashbacks, PTSD
> 
> While this isn't my first SPG FanFic, this is the first one that I’m posting for all you lovely internet people... what the devil am I getting myself into?
> 
> I do hope you enjoy! (and I apologize advance for my crippling inability to find all my typos and grammatical problems in spite of several copy-edit passes...)

 

* * *

 

“…that was Snow White and the Seven Sins, by _Gemini Lies_. You know, I used to think I was a Gemini until I learned about the earth’s tilt thing… It all made sense after that… It’s about 6:15 and we are almost ready to go to Jason Pullie for the morning traffic update. You are listening to Rock 105.3…”

Michael Reed groggily snaked a hand out from under the covers of the bed and hit the radio, trying to hit the ‘snooze’ button, but he ended up turning it off instead.

Grunting in annoyance, the One-Man-Band got up. It was bad enough to have to wake up to a DJ on the radio instead of music, but now, he couldn’t even take the ‘5 more minutes’ excuse that the snooze function offered him. Today was shaping up to be a rollicking good time…

He trudged to the bathroom and flicked on the light. Shutting his eyes against the bright intrusion to the dark room, Michael stretched and blindly shuffled to the sink.  His heart sank when he looked at the mirror.

There was a memo note taped dead center on the looking glass. It read: “Optical Upgrade 4 The Spine @ 9:00 am. No excuses this time. –P.A. Walter VI”

Michael let out something between a curse and a whine as he rubbed his eyes, his head already starting to ache. He wished for nothing more than to crawl back into his bed and forget that he saw the note.

Now Michael knew it was going to be a bad day.

 

* * *

 

8:45 am

Michael looked up from his watch and took a steading breath. He couldn’t put this off any further, fifteen minutes to nine was cutting it close enough. Looked at the door to the Hall of Wires, he brought his hand up to knock.

“G-good morning, Mistah Reed.”

Michael looked over at Rabbit as the automaton walked up next to him. The copper face was set in a smile but it didn’t reach his mismatched optics. The human sighed with a defeated look.

“I really doubt that, Rabbit.”

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to maybe wait another week or so, c-could I?”

Michael smiled mirthlessly, “You’d have to take it up with Walter this time. He even left me a note.”

Rabbit looked crestfallen and let out a vent of steam. “I was ‘fraid you’d say that.”

They stood together silently for a beat before the metal man continued, “The Jon will be here soon too… He said he had to get something that would help.”

“I really hope it’s not s’mores. I don’t want to have to clean out marshmallow gunk from of his gears before we do this.”

Rabbit only smiled tersely and shrugged.

“Okaaaay,” Michael let out like a sigh, “I’m going in. You wanna come with?”

Rabbit shook his head quickly, the goggles on his hat giving off small jingles as he did so. “N-nah, I prefer to st-stay away from that ro-ro-room. You can go ahead, Michael. I’ll be out here waiting for ya.”

“Thanks, bud.”

“I try.” Rabbit winked with a real smile and gave him an encouraging nod. “Go get ‘im, tiger!”

Michael just shook his head and opened the door to the Hall of Wires. Red lights lit his face as he looked back at Rabbit one last time before entering in and closing the door behind him.

The Hall of Wires hummed with activity, making Michael’s teeth hurt as it reached an odd frequency that made the inside of his skull rattle. The man pressed his hands against his temples to give himself a little more insulation against the buzzing in his head, but it did little to help.

As he surveyed the red lit room, peering around thick, heavy wires that stretched all over and at all angles, Michael found himself thinking about Jumanji (the actual cursed board game from Kazooland, not the Robin William’s movie that was based off it.)

It didn’t take him long to see a long limbed, dark clad form resting in the far corner of the room. Michael carefully climbed over the wires, jumping when he saw one move towards him, and walked over it.

Michael moved in front of it and immediately rolled his eyes. While it was The Spine’s body, it was missing its head. Michael craned his neck to look at the wires above him.

“Hey! Spine? You up there?”

No response. Michael let out a tired sigh and called up to the unresponsive wires again.

“Let’s try to be little more mature about this. Come on, Spine, you know I’m not going away.”

With an electronic click, a screen swung down from the unknown heights and stopped just short of smashing against the human’s face. Michael flinched away as a green ‘smiley-face’ emoticon appeared on the screen.

“H3110, M1ST3R R33D. G00D M0RN1NG.”

“Hello QWERTY,” Michael replied, not unfriendly but not warmly either.

A question mark appeared on the screen before him and the voice said “WHATCHUWANT?”

“I need The Spine.”

“T3H SP1N3Z N0T H33R.”

“QWERTY, come on, I can see his chassis right over there.” Michael gestured to the body in the corner.

“0H Y3AH. L0L! MY BAD.”

Michael just looked at the screen with an unamused face.

“SP1N3Z S1CK. HE HAZ A V1RUS. V3RY C0NTAG10US.”

“And… I’m done playing this game. QWERTY, go get The Spine. Now.”

Michael gave the screen the ‘serious eye’ and the question mark turned to a sad-face emoticon.

“W3LL, 1 TR13D…”

With the message relayed, the screen swung back up into the wires above.

Michael didn’t have to wait long before the wires began to writhe and pulled back like a curtain.  A hammock of wires dropped down from above and nestled in the center was a titanium alloy spine and head coiled up, looking like a large silver snake. The Spine’s green eyes glowed in the red lit room, but he didn’t meet the glance of the engineer.

“Hey, The Spine... You ready?”

The Spine continued to rest silently, coiled up and not moving.

“You know we can’t keep putting this off.” Michael started, his voice moving from sternness to sympathy.

Normally, The Spine was the last automaton that Michel had to worry about when it came to upgrades. The titanium ‘bot would count down the days until ‘upgrade day’ and be waiting in the workshop before Michael arrived, wanting to discuss possible changes and ideas that he had. But The Spine knew what was on the agenda today and Michael knew they couldn’t delay it one any longer. He could see the almost imperceptible flickering from the automaton’s photoreceptors.

“Come on, let’s get you into your chassis,” Michael reached down to give The Spine a lift to his body but jumped back when he saw the metal vertebral column coil up like a snake getting ready to strike as he moved closer

“Hey, there is no need for that.” Michael folded his arms in front of him and The Spine seemed to relax.

“Sorry…” The baritone voice muttered. “Not sure what’s come over me…”

“I can take a wild guess,” Michael responded dryly and he gestured to the abandoned body.

The Spine shuttered his photoreceptors for a moment, then slithered out of the hammock and undulated to his chassis. He slipped into his body smoothly and some of the wires swung down with his black wig and fedora, placing them smartly on his head.

“I don’t think we should do this today, Mister Reed.”

Michael resisted the need to rub his eyes. Here we go, he though exasperatingly, the million and a half reasons we shouldn’t do an upgrade today. The Spine was even calling him ‘Mister Reed.’ Not a good sign.

“Ok, Spine, why do you think we shouldn’t do this today?”

The Spine remained seated, as if he wasn’t correctly locked in to place. Green optics looked up at Michael seriously. “There is a 10 percent chance of an electrical storm today. It’s clearly too dangerous to go through with the procedure.”

“There isn’t a cloud in the sky.”

“How do you know? There aren’t any windows in here.”

“I checked before I came and got you.”

The Spine opened his mouth as if to argue, but Michael got words out first. “Spine, I know you don’t want to have this done, but can we please just get this over with? I promise, it will be fast and it will be over before you know it. Dragging it out will only make it worse.”

The Spine closed his mouth with a snap and expelled a deep vent of steam.

“Is there anything I can say that would convince you to put this off until tomorrow?”

Michael shook his head softly, “I got orders from on high today. There’s no getting around it this time. Those photoreceptors need to be upgraded and cleaned before they start giving you bad information.”

“Dammit…” The Spine cursed softly then flinched when he realized he’d said it out loud. He looked apologetically at Michael who just shrugged.

With a series of robotic clicks, The Spine righted himself, the silver face plates set in a serious expression.

“I really don’t want to do this.”

“I know, The Spine. But we’ve put his off four times already. It’s not safe. You need to get this upgrade.”

The Spine gave another vent of steam and shook his head. Michael started for the door to the hall and The Spine followed behind, his eyes on the ground, filled with worry.

When they left the room, Michael saw both Rabbit and The Jon were standing in the hallway.

Rabbit came forward and placed a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, an encouraging smile on his face. “It’s gonna be alright, cowboy. We are all going to be there with you. You aren’t going to be alone, I promise.”

“He’s right!” The Jon chimed in as he held aloft a well loved stuffed dinosaur plushy. “Lord Commander Bartleby Pimperton, the bravest of all the residents of the Popcorn Kingdom, will be with you too!”

The Spine gave a rather shamefaced smile and Michael knew he was feeling embarrassed at showing such weakness in front of his brothers. It was an unusual break from his normally very serious and responsible persona, but he let his brothers surround him. The four of them (including Bartleby) made a procession to the workshop.

But before Michael turned to follow the automatons, he saw a glimpse of a familiar mask down the hall and checked his watch.

9:15 am. So much for being timely.

 

* * *

 

The group stopped in front of the workshop door as they waited for Michael to catch up. They hadn’t said much on the trip down to the room, the two other ‘bots were too busy sending comforting and pleasant images over the wireless to their distressed brother to talk. The Spine rarely gave them a reason to fuss over him, so they were taking full advantage of the situation.

“Alright guys,” Michael said, making his way to the front. The engineer gave a steadying look at Rabbit and a small nod. “Let’s get started.”

Rabbit, seeing the look, looped his arm around The Spine’s, holding him in place, and gave a nod back at the human.

He opened the door and The Spine’s frame went rigid.

In the middle of the room sat the operating table, but this wasn’t the table he was accustomed to using. This one had cuffs on it.

The Spine took a step back as dark thoughts and memories crept into his mind at the sight of the table, shrugging off his brother’s grasp.

This was the table that was usually only used for Rabbit during his most violent malfunctions. The straps were tough and sturdy, in spite of their worn look. The Spine shook his head as if he had developed Parkinson’s disease.

He took another heavy step back and found that his escape was blocked by his younger brother. The Jon smiled sadly and hugged Bartleby to his chest a little tighter.

The Spine turned to Michael. He tried to keep eye contact with the engineer, but his eyes kept returning to the table.

“Is this really necessary?” The Spine asked; an edge of panic threatening to take over his voice.

The One-Man-Band nodded apologetically, “I’m so sorry, Spine, but in this case, I’m going to have to strap you down. I would power you down if I could but you know you have to stay active for this or it won’t work.”

The Spine’s bellows started to work harder as he felt his oil pressure rising. He felt trapped. Before he could stop himself, he started looking for possible escape routes.

“I don’t wanna do this…” The Spine said pointlessly, and then shook himself, fighting to regain control, looking at Michael seriously again.  “I don’t need the binds, I’ll be ok. I have my brother here. It will be fine. I will be fine.”

Michael looked over at Rabbit who shook his head sadly.

The Spine looked at his older brother in desperate confusion, not understanding this apparent betrayal, before realizing that his wireless was still on. They must be seeing that he was on the verge of panicking. With a sharp tick, The Spine switched off his connection to the network, embarrassed at his weakness and inability to keep control of his own demons. He heard his younger brother take a relieved sigh behind him. He didn’t want to see what The Spine was going to be thinking soon.

“I’m fine. Really.”

“It’s re-really not that bad, Spine.” Rabbit said gently, taking the silver hand in his gloved copper one. “I know it seems scary, but it will be for the best. I promise.”

“I really don’t- I’m not ok with this.” The Spine dropped his brother’s hand and started to pace around the room. He appeared to struggling to think of something that would keep himself off that table. The flickering of his photoreceptors had gotten more noticeable as the added stress on his already worn optic processors threatened to short them out.

But Michael came forward first; his face was drawn with grief at what he knew he had to ask of him.

“Spine, I’m so sorry, but we have to do this… You know how you can get when your optics are turned off.”

The Spine stopped his restless pacing and flinched at the reference to the last time his photoreceptors were turned off.

“But, we learn from our mistake, right? We got your brothers here with you and I have a more streamlined process for this. So, please, for my sake… for my protection. Please. Let me tack you down.”

The Spine’s face fell from fear to shame. He understood what his human friend was saying: ‘I’m afraid of you.’

And he couldn’t blame him. Not after last time.

The Spine nodded in defeat and tried not to look at the table as Michael led him and directed him to lay down on its cold surface.

He didn’t want to flinch as he felt the straps being lightened around his wrists, ankles and head, but the metal man couldn’t stop himself.

As Michael started to undo the buttons on the automaton’s vest and shirt to get the chest and neck panels open, his brothers rushed to either side of him. Rabbit and The Jon both held tightly to each of his hands. He could see in their faces. They were very nervous for him, but trying their best to be brave. Especially Rabbit.

 Rabbit was the oldest after all. He knew Pappy would never forgive him if he let his brother stay so scared while he could do something about it.

Michael cracked his knuckles and placed his goggles over his eyes, swinging the bright surgeon lamp over to where he had opened the titanium panels. The engineer placed his hands on the photoreceptor inputs and looked at his patient.

“Alright, Spine. Photoreceptors are about to go offline. You ready?”

The Spine filled his bellows shakingly (feeling his brothers tightening their grip on his hands) and responded: “Let’s just get this over with.”

Without another word, The Spine’s vision flickered to black and white… then nothing.

The Spine stiffened as soon as he was blinded. He tried to steal himself against the dark thoughts that hid in the corners of his mind, when he heard his brother’s voice.

“D-Did I ever tell you the tale of when Rex Marksley and Ol’ Prospector Bean found the cursed mines of the Black Diamonds?”

And suddenly, The Spine found himself enveloped in adventure tales from his brothers. As soon as Rabbit had finished one story he moved to the next without stopping. He told him a story of Captain Albert Alexander rescuing a mermaid from evil, squid worshipping cultists. He told him a story about a brave knight that was given a quest to slay a dragon and save a princess, but in a twist, the Dragon ended up being the princess and the girl was an evil sorceress.

When Rabbit had to take a break to think of a new story, The Jon would add one of his own tales. Such as a story about a magic jackalope who lost his family but with the help of a little girl in a red cloak heading to her grandmother’s house, he was reunited with them. He told his older brother a story of a rabbit named Clive and his friend, a badger named Billy, going on an adventure to explore outside of their meadow.

Between the two of his brothers, grasping his hands, there wasn’t a moment of silence. The Spine could focus on the words of the stories, keeping the dark memories at bay. He wasn’t alone. His family was here with him.

The Jon had just gotten to the part of his tale when Clive and Billy met a wise old owl named Olly, when the voice of the mechanic interrupted.

“Alright, Spine! I’m just about done here. You ready to see 8 times better then you thought possible?”

“Honestly, Mister Reed,” The Spine started, his voice a little thin sounding; he could feel his throat panels were still open, “I don’t much care how I see as long as I CAN see.”

He heard Michael laugh softly, and add: “Fair enough.”

“You’ve been so brave, The Spine.” The Jon said encouragingly.

“Of course he has!” Rabbit said with a tight squeeze from his hand. “That’s my little brother for ya. They b-built ‘em strong and brave back in the 90’s… the 1890’s, that is.”

“And by ‘they,’ you mean Daddy.”

“Well, th-that goes without sayin.’ Pappy was the best robut maker in the entire universe.”

“Hey guys, could you back up a sec?” Michael broke the banter short, gripping the new input connectors. The Spine felt his brothers let go of his hands and the warmth of the engineer’s as he moved inside of his neck cavity.

“Ok, here we go. Connecting new photoreceptors to the sensory library… Should be active in three… two… o-”

Michael’s voice stopped suddenly and The Spine felt an electrical discharge run down the length of his vertebrae that made him wince in pain.

“That didn’t feel good,” The Spine started conversationally, tilting his head as much as possible against the binds.

But Michael didn’t respond and he still couldn’t see.

“Everything alright there, Michael?”

Silence.

“Michael? Mister Reed?”

The Spine felt his bellows start to work double speed as he fought his rising panic. Why wouldn’t anyone say anything?

“Rabbit? Jon? Anyone?! Please talk to me!”

They were gone. The Spine was alone.

“Someone! Say something! Please help me!”

He struggled against the binds violently, but they held strong.

The Spine’s sensory matrices were in conflict with his logic processors. His logic processors informed him that he was in the Walter Manor. He was safe in workshop of Michael Reed and his photoreceptors, and, apparently, his audioreceptors were offline. His brothers were there, even if he could hear them. He was safe. Just be patient and Michael will fix this.

But his sensory matrices told him another story. He was trapped and blinded in a lonely cell in Vietnam. He could feel the damp and humid air in his exposed bellows. He could hear the echoing cries of his brothers and the sharp snapping of electricity as instruments of torture were powered on. He could see the cold, impassive faces of strangers looming over him and dim light glinting off sharp, cruel tools moving closely to him.

The Spine felt confused as he tried to make sense of what to believe.  He could feel his processors overclocking and his temperature rising. The internal clocks he was outfitted with were giving him false readings as he had no optical readout to verify the time or date.

A shock of pain ran though his system again and he felt hands moving inside his chassis.

The sensory matrices won out over logic.

“Please, don’t do this. Please, let me go.” The Spine begged to the silent captor, waiting for the pain to start again as it always did.

He thrashed as much as possible in the binds; the spines in his back unconsciously started to slide out. But before he could fully extend them, he felt a strong pressure on his chest, forcing his back against the table. The Spine cried out as the barbs were forced back into their slots, fully expecting a disciplinary jolt for attempting such a thing. But it didn’t come and instead a cold dread settled in him. If they weren’t going to hurt him…

“No! I’m sorry! Please, don’t hurt them!” The Spine screamed as loud as he could, hoping that there was someone close by that would hear his pleadings. “Please! Don’t hurt them! I’m sorry! Forgive me! I won’t fight back! Don’t hurt my brothers! PLEASE!!”

The Spine felt a vice like grip take hold of his hands, but he didn’t fight it. He had no idea what a touch like that meant, but he continued to quietly beg the person that was in the room with him to let them go, to hurt him and not his brothers, to tell him if this brothers were alright, to tell him anything at all.

Then, without warning, his photoreceptors flickered and activated. The world was still silent, but he saw that he was in the Walter Manor workshop #5. His green optics moved over those in the room. Michael Reed was there, his breath came in hard, ragged gasps, his arms were streaked with oil up to his elbows and his electrician gloves had been abandoned somewhere. His face was lined with sorrow, but he gave a relived smile when The Spine met his eyes.

The Spine looked down to his hands and saw his baby brother, his face wet with oily tears, held tightly to his hand. He could see The Jon’s gold and brass form shivering with worry and he only seemed to wail harder when he saw his older brother looking at him.

He felt a weight being moved from his shoulders and Rabbit appeared at his side. The copper plates were set tightly and he had a murderous worry in his mismatched optics. Rabbit leaned in closely and looked hard into his eyes.

Suddenly, a cracking “pop” sound came in through the audioreceptors that made the titanium automaton jump in surprise.

The voice of Michael Reed never sounded better.

“-shouldn’t be long now. Oh god, Spine… I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.”

Rabbit didn’t look away, his voice was as serious as The Spine had ever heard it. “You are safe. You are home.”

The Spine glanced down at The Jon and gave him a tight squeeze from his hands, (which felt that they had been a little bent from being held too tightly), looked over to Michael who was drying his drenched face with a hand shaking from adrenaline, then returned his gaze back up at Rabbit.

He was safe. A smile of pure relief took over the silver face. The dark memories chased away by his beloved family. He was home.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N
> 
> One of the stories that The Jon was telling is a nod to 'The Tale of Clive and Billy' that Storpey told during his playing of Slenderman: The Arrival. I crack up every time and you should totally give this a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq3xUHZb0mY  
> The Jon told this story to The Spine with less screaming and cursing though…


End file.
